Broken
by Light1
Summary: Vergil isn't what Dante remembers.


**Broken**

Disclaimer: Devil May Cry belongs to people who are not me. I am making £0.00 out of this fic; it is written purely because I had some Dante angst.

Rating: PG-13

Part: One of One

Set: Post DMC5

Authoress note: Vergil isn't what Dante remembers.

**For all my reviewers, **who without I would have surely given up a long time ago.

**Broken**

Living with Vergil wasn't easy, Dante had always known it would be a challenge, but it was proving difficult in a way he hadn't expected.

He had been expecting their difficulties to either be the same as they had been when they had been infants, squabbles over who owned what, who's space was where, and who had broken what. Or perhaps the difficulties of two powerful demons sharing close quarters, again whose space was whose, who's food was who's, and who's scent was where it wasn't supposed to be.

In a nutshell, he'd expected anger, territorial behaviour and fights, the fights that blurred the line between squabbling and actual murder. Oddly, he'd been looking forward to it. He loved 'fighting' with his brother. Their reunion in their late teens, before Temi Ni Gru, had been violent but was one of Dante's fondest memories. He loved that he didn't need to hold back, that he could give it his all and Vergil would meet him blow for blow, never flinching, never really getting hurt and taking as much pleasure from it as Dante did. In short, Dante had expected violence, he had looked forward to violence, despite what Nero said about family.

He hadn't expected fear.

He really hadn't expected fear, and it made him sick to sense it now.

Dante had never sensed fear from Vergil before and had absolutely no idea how to respond to it. Hell, he had no idea why it was there. Vergil did not need to fear him, no need to be afraid of anything, nothing could hurt Vergil. In Dante's mind he was immutable, as he always had been.

The fear hadn't been there in the Underworld, the place Vergil had spent most of his adult life. It had only started after they had come back to the human world. It had been little things at first, Vergil flinching when Dante stepped too close, always positioning himself at a distance from everyone, even the humans who occasionally visited Devil May Cry. That Vergil flinched away from Patty when she tried to fidget with his hair should have been funny, but it just made Dante's skin crawl.

Things got worse quickly, the fear turning into terror. Vergil all but hiding away from the world, snapping when spoken to but never following through with his threats (which was not like him and all, if Vergil said he was going to hurt you then you were going to hurt). The while the level of fear was increasing each day, making the air thick with it and making Dante nauseous to be in his own home.

Things finally reached a peak when Vergil stopped sleeping for two weeks and became reliant on caffeine and other stimulants to keep himself awake. On the first day of the third week Dante had come downstairs to find Vergil half asleep over a pot of strong coffee, he'd reached out to move it away, at least his foolish brother fall face-first into it. The movement startled Vergil who had yelped in fright, a sound Dante hadn't even thought him capable of making and scuttled backwards with blatant terror in his eyes. His body curled low to the ground, not his usual fighting stance, instead, he looked more like an infant trying to avoid a blow.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Dante snapped. He couldn't help it, the tension was so tight it made breathing difficult let alone reining in demonic instincts. His demon was screaming at him, the rival was afraid, was weak, now was the time to take him down. Dominate the rival, show him who's in charge, who is strongest. While the infant in Dante was howling in grief at seeing his beloved brother in a state of such terror and feeling powerless about it. Dante felt very noisy.

Vergil said nothing in response to Dante's outburst. He'd never been verbally expressive at the best of times. He stood, pulling himself up to his full, if exhausted, height.

"Nothing," Vergil said. "How else should I react to your creeping about?"

"By stabbing me!" Dante snapped. "That was always your default."

"You want to be stabbed?" Yamato materialised in Vergil's hand, but it was an empty threat. All Dante could feel from his brother was exhaustion and the underlying fear. There was nothing else. There was no threat here, and it broke Dante's heart.

"I want to know what's going on with you," Dante said through his teeth, his demon pushing hard for the fight, Vergil was weak, exhausted and afraid, now was the time to act. Vergil said nothing, he only glared, but even that was a watered-down version of his usual indignation. They were silent for a long moment until Dante could stand the screaming of his demon no longer. He turned on his heel and stormed out of the building.

He walked the streets for a long hour, letting his temper calm before picking up the phone and calling the only person he could think of.

Nero.

"Not sure when you became the de facto therapist for the family, but…" Dante managed after 'pleasantries' were exchanged.

"Figured this shit would happen," Nero muttered. "You know talking to 'him' would be better than me."

"I tried," Dante said.

"I mean talking, not screaming," Nero muttered. "Or growling, or snarling, or any other demonic sound your face makes on any occasion when it's not snoring or burping."

"Shut up, kid," Dante said.

"Rude," Nero muttered. "But you're in luck old man, Nico and I are only about an hour away, buy me lunch and I'll try to help."

"You're an angel," Dante drawled.

Nero arrived and gave the bar Dante had chosen as a meeting point stink eye. Dante ignored him. The bar was perfect, dark, quiet and best of all it served ice cream and hard liquor. It was home away from home, if only he could convince the owner to do pizza's or at least let him get some delivered then it would be heaven.

"So, lunch is…" Nero trailed off sitting next to Dante who pushed a bowl of ice cream and a shot of whiskey at his nephew. "Fantastic."

"Damned right it is," Dante grinned.

"You're a terrible example," Nero muttered, starting on the ice cream. Dante shrugged.

"Never claimed to be anything else," he grinned. "To be honest, your old man should have been a beneficial influence on me. I figured the moment we got home, he'd be all up in my face getting the office sorted, cleaned and whatnot. Getting a proper kitchen set up. You know the thing where there are coffee machines and the foods not always microwaved."

"And he's not?" Nero said Dante shook his head. "If that's the problem, I'm gonna smack you so hard." Dante raised an eyebrow. "You can't throw a hissy fit because…" Nero hesitated a moment, struggling with his words. "Your brother isn't meeting some ideal you've dreamed up for him. It's unfair to hold people to made-up ideals and then throw hissy fits when they don't meet them." He trailed off again.

"Fair Nuff," Dante drawled. "But it's not the problem, so no smack downs yet."

"Ok, so what is the problem?" Nero said.

"He fears me," Dante said bluntly. Nero inhaled his ice-cream and choked.

"Bullshit," he managed when Dante clapped him on the back to clear the sweet treat from his lungs. "You could have said anything else, anything, jealous, filled with hate, irritated, turning pink on a whim, I'd have believed any of it. But not that."

"Yeah, I'd be the same if not for having lived at my place for the last couple weeks," Dante shuddered. "He stinks of it and I don't know why."

"Did you ask him?" Nero said, slowing his words down comically. Dante whacked the back of his nephew's head.

"Yes, I asked him," he paused. "Well sort of, I yelled. He didn't answer though."

"Fuck sake, old man," Nero signed. "Use your big boy words." Dante sorted.

"I will," he said. "But it won't do any good, your old man, he's a closed book kid. You can ask as many questions as you like, but he won't answer them. Vergil doesn't do feelings."

"You're such a prick," Nero sighed. "Everyone does feelings. V did." They fell into silence for a long moment. Dante finished his ice cream and whiskey. He ordered two more whiskeys and Nero signed loudly.

"Don't judge," he muttered.

"What else?" Nero said Dante raised an eyebrow. "What else has there been? He's gotta have been doing something else other than sitting around being freaked out by you."

"Nothing," Dante said, giving it some thought. "He was fine before we got home. Then when we got back it just started, right out of the blue. It's wrong, Vergil's never been afraid of me, even when he was V, he wasn't scared of me, asshole woke me up with the damned Sparda, scared people don't do that kinda thing." Dante couldn't help but smile at the memory of V, sassy bitch that he was, he was a part of Vergil that Dante had really liked. Pompous ass.

"So, nothing at all, just blind fear for no reason?" Nero snapped Dante out of his musings.

"Well, he stopped sleeping. That made it worse," Dante said. Nero pinched the bridge of his nose.

"That's a big something, Dante," he said. "People don't just stop sleeping." Dante frowned.

"He didn't stop sleeping," Dante muttered suddenly. "It's like he's fighting not to sleep, he's refusing to sleep."

"Odd," Nero said. Dante snorted, Nero was right, it was odd. They hadn't slept in the underworld but that wasn't on purpose, the high levels of background demonic energy had stopped them needing to sleep or eat. But on returning Vergil had slept, at least the first few nights. What the hell had happened to stop him wanting to sleep?

It took them both an embarrassingly long time to figure out what was going on.

Vergil was broken.

Really, really broken.

It shocked Dante to realise just how broken Vergil apparently was. He'd spent so long with his memories of Vergil being the strong one, the dependable one, the one who could be relied upon while the rest of the world fell apart. Vergil never faltered, never wobbled, never wavered. He was strong.

Except now, there were cracks in Vergil.

Enormous cracks, and Dante felt like a moron for being surprised.

Dante had always expected he would be the most broken of the two of them, he'd spent his adult life in almost constant isolation, poverty and self-abuse. He'd drank his loneliness, to where a human would have died from liver poisoning and alcohol-induced dementia years ago. He'd thrown himself into violence, taking headless risks, anything to quiet the part of him that had screamed that he missed that crucial part of himself that was his twin.

It had never occurred to him that Vergil would feel this as intensely as he had. That Vergil would be as broken, if not more so than he was.

He'd let his memories rule him. In his memory, Vergil was the Vergil who had fallen that day in the tower, arrogant and powerful. His indomitable will enough to protect him from anything. But that was a child's way of viewing things. Vergil's will was not a shield and Vergil had fallen into Hell where he had become a slave to Mundus. He'd spent years as a slave to a demon lord who hated their father. Dante shivered, trying to shut his imagination down before it supplied him with ideas of the hell Mundus had put Vergil through. Trauma like that left its marks.

Vergil was having night terrors.

At the end of the night, Dante let Nero and Nico give him a lift back to the shop and waved them off. He stood outside for a long moment, building his courage for what was to come. The uncountable amount of booze he'd drank was not making him any braver, Dutch courage was a total fake.

Walking inside, Dante scanned the place for signs of Vergil and spotted him quickly on the sofa. He was reading, which was not uncommon, but his eyes were unfocused and heavy-lidded despite the powerful smell of coffee and energy drinks.

"Um…" Dante managed, his words sticking in his throat. Vergil looked up but remained silent. "Right, um… I'm bad at this so bear with me ok?" he waited for the tiny nod from his now rather confused looking brother.

"Go on," Vergil said when Dante still said nothing.

"Right, yeah," Dante went and sat next to Vergil on the sofa. "Now, you don't have to tell me anything if you don't want to. But I'd like it if you did. I think I have an idea what's going on with you and you can't keep going on like this." Vergil snorted.

"You have an idea?" he said, smirking. "A first for you, I am sure." Dante didn't rise to the bait.

"I don't know what the last twenty years was like for you, but I can't imagine it was nice," Dante said. Vergil let out a sharp laugh that made Dante's stomach roll inside him. Dante swallowed the bile rising in his throat.

"My mistakes are my own," Vergil said when he got his momentary burst of laughter under control.

"They don't have to be," Dante blurted. "You're not on your own now, me neither," Vergil said nothing. Dante leaned back on the sofa. "You gotta sleep though. You can't just stay awake forever; it won't work and you know that."

"I know," Vergil said, which for him was a lot like admitting the problem, Dante was impressed.

"It's not like you to run away from a problem," Dante glanced at his brother.

"Hard to deal with a problem I can't engage with my sword," Vergil answered. Dante grappled with how to phrase what he wanted to say next. That had occurred to him in the bar after yet another bottle of whiskey.

"Do you remember when we were kids?" he said. "I hated storms, damn noisy assholes." He swallowed yet another lump in his throat. Goddamn, this talking shit was hard. "Do you remember what you did for me?"

"Yes," Vergil said. Dante smiled, remembering the nights Vergil had stopped being an asshole older brother and had let a scared Dante into his bed. He'd never gone to his parent's bed as a child, he'd always gone to Vergil and Vergil had never turned him away. It was one of the few gentle memories Dante had of the two of them. Safe, warm and together, Dante protected from the storm by Vergil's powerful arm around his waist.

"I saw Nero today," Dante said, trying to break the awkward tension and failing.

"I wondered who was responsible for your sudden insight," Vergil muttered, Dante, thumped him because it would have been wrong not to.

"He told me something," Dante said. "Something V said, well you said I guess." Dante forced himself not to smile or comment when Vergil started flushing red. "You can have that, you know, protection, love." He coughed awkwardly, not understanding how to continue or even if he should.

They sat in silence for a long time.

Unable to think of anything else to say, Dante stood and headed upstairs, his hand briefly closing on Vergil's shoulder as he passed. Vergil knew he had to sleep; he had admitted that he was fighting a meaningless fight, that was something surely? Getting stripped for bed Dante wondered why he didn't feel better, he'd figured out what was going on, with help from Nero. Vergil wasn't afraid of him, and that was a good thing. But Vergil was still afraid and of something they couldn't attack with swords. Understanding had not brought a solution. His demon still purred that Vergil was weak and afraid. A perfect target. Nothing was any better. He had no idea how to fix this beyond what he had already done.

Dante clambered into bed, feeling hopeless.

He woke late in the night to the sound of his door opening. Hope sparked in his chest. He remained perfectly still almost like he was dealing with a spooked animal. He felt the bed dip and couldn't help but smile when he felt Vergil clamber in next to him.

"Don't you dare say a word," Vergil muttered. "Ever."

Dante silently curled himself around Vergil, forcing his demon to assume a protective stance against its nature. He bribed it with the knowledge that Vergil needed their protection, fed its pride and felt it preen at the implication that it was strongest. It could keep the rival safe when the rival could not protect itself. It liked that. Dante rolled his eyes at his demon's petty nature.

Gently, he lifted an arm and let it slowly settle over his brother. He almost withdrew when Vergil tensed, but after a moment Vergil relaxed against him. Within moments Vergil's breath evened out in sleep, Dante stayed awake, keeping watch.

Protection and love, Dante thought to himself. Who'd have ever thought it?

**End**

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